Tag: applied improvisation

Global trends in leadership development identify collective leadership as the most prominent trend in leadership development. The reasoning is that, instead of developing people, organisations should develop an environment where leadership can thrive. Leadership is no longer individual but rather spread through a network. It exists across levels and between units in a culture of knowledge sharing. Leaders can leave organisations, but their leadership stays behind.
What does this environment look like?
One could identify five aspects of collective leadership (see Cassandra O’Neill and Monica Brinkerhoff):

It sees organisations not as machines, but as interconnected systems;

It is not served by a hierarchical structure, but by a flatter, interconnected network of relationships;

The decision-making function in a collective leadership is not top-down but shared and/or rotated between people;

In a collective leadership people do not need to be told what to do because they are inherently capable and trustworthy to do what is right and needed;

To create such an environment is not the job of a hero but of a host. Leadership is enabled through the facilitation of atmosphere, environment and structure, not of the lone ranger or diva at the top telling others what to do. To me, this sounds a lot like the difference between show biz, which is based on the rising of a star, and the performances possible through improvisation and collaboration.
Improvisation principles, then, become intrinsically necessary for the cultivation of collective leadership, principles like how to listen and respond, how to give and take control, how to say yes to an idea and build on it with your own creativity, how to make each other look good, how to respond fresh to each new context and how to make in-action decisions based on a shared vision. In improvising, too, people learn to leverage diverse ideas and collaborate across difference.
Yet, improvisational interaction also requires the creation of an environment that is conducive to such interaction. One cannot just improvise without context, trust and a sense of safety that one can take calculated risks.
Therefore, improvisation and collective leadership also have in common the need to understand how to create an environment for collaboration and the taking of creative initiative. We therefore provide here the five kinds of safety needed, not only for improvisers to interact with each other in a way that builds story and creativity, but also by organisations that want to enable collective leadership. Collective leadership can, we argue, only thrive in an environment where people feel safe to take the initiative required for them to creatively solve problems, engage with each other and move an organisation forward towards fulfilling its purpose.

Physical safety: People need to feel safe in physical spaces that are cared for, where there are no broken lights, inadequate airflow, electrical faults or lack of access to resources. This may seem obvious, but lack of infrastructure and resources, or just a perceived lack, can greatly influence the willingness of people to share leadership.

Metaphorical safety: This is the kind of safety derived from a sense that a space is tolerant and free of prejudice. My ideas and contributions are valued and I will not be singled out for failure to meet some unspoken standard. Fairness and trust play a big role in this kind of safety.

Safety derived from the familiar. One feels safe in a space that is well-known. In a world that changes drastically and where organisations must in turn respond, there is a great need for people to create safety in the familiar. This could be familiar people, surroundings, values or processes. An organisation must therefore take care to introduce and make known as much of its new ideas as early as possible and let people take part in changes from early on so that they may feel safe with the organisation as it becomes familiar.

Safety to risk. When people feel safe, they feel able to take creative risks and venture into the unknown. Finding a way to balance the known and the unknown becomes an important aspect of creating an environment for collective leadership to thrive.

Safety in repetition. There is a safety in the knowledge that tomorrow I can come back and take another risk, try again to solve something that has not yet been successful. In this sense there is a way in which organisations must look at failure not as a problem, but as an offer of opportunity to learn and improve – an offer to try again.

Finally, there is the need for safety from consequences. In this sense the idea is that there should be plenty of opportunity for people to take small risks in controlled environments. This relates to on the job training and iterative projects where change may be constant but small and incremental.

The above principles are derived not from organisational development theory and practice, but from play theory and practice related to how to create what is called a ‘temenos’ – a play space or sacred space where people are ‘set apart together’ (set apart from the everyday, but together as a team) for the purpose of achieving a shared goal in the context of a game or ritual. This definition of a play space sounds a lot like an organisational space where people create an organisation for the accomplishment of a particular purpose, following certain values and policies in a building or place set apart for their collective endeavour.
We acknowledge that not all aspects of an organisation can always be managed according to the above principles. Yet, it might be possible in any organisation to create pockets of possibility where such opportunities for improvisational, collective and innovative interaction can be achieved. In such pockets of possibility, skills for collective leadership can be practised and honed for application in the larger organisational system.
Anyone interested to understand more about collective leadership and its relationship to improvisation can contact us at petro@playingmantis.net. You may also choose to join our Applied Improvisation Network Africa jam, details are below.

An open space session I facilitated at the G I I symposium on Friday morning 17 May.

How I introduced the session:

I am a racist. Not because I intentionally discriminate or harm people outside my own race, but because I was brought up in a racialised system. Because of this, I may behave and speak in a discriminatory and hurtful manner without noticing. Some call it “unconscious bias“. I think it is time we take responsibility and become conscious.

To experiment with new and unfamiliar behaviour, we need a safe space to fail. What better way to create such a space and to experiment with new behaviours then through improvisation?

So, five of us got together and played with our racism. This is the session design, but it does not contain people’s stories. These remain confidential.

Session design

This session was designed using one of the techniques from the Strategic Narrative Embodiment TM suite. We call it the ‘Pig catching signature move’ – it is designed around the archetype of the flying pig, but for this session, we used it to play with racism – an equily illusive concept. The structure is great for working with any number of abstract ideas. For a full description and facilitator guide for the technique, contact petro@playingmantis.net

Note: All sessions are designed according to the SNE STORI-model (What is STORI?)

The strategic intent is set at the start and ‘parked’ outside the space to define it, but not drive it.

Facilitator note: Setting up the strategic frame is the most important part of holding the facilitation when working with applied performance. It is the contract that helps us know which possibilities to choose and work with. These possibilities arise each time an individual interacts with the story in the room. The disruption itself is welcome and part of the point and it is framed and made sense of through the lens of the strategic frame. This strategic frame along with the ‘rules’ of the various exercises hold the safety and structure of the work where there is hardly any particular content or ‘script’. Also, when working with something as complex and potentially triggering as racism, these structures and safety measures are important.

We were clear about our frame as we set up the open space session: To play with racism so we can better make sense of our own relationship to it.

We further refined these intentions by sharing stories of racism where we ourselves were either a perpetrator, witness or victi of racism. These stories clarified to us our individual stance for the session.

What we got from this session

T – Transition

Facilitator note:When we work with the arts in OD processes, it is really important that people transition from their minds only to include body and emotions, from past and future to the present and from individual mindset into collective mindset. Also, people need to practise following the ‘rules’ of the game. These ‘rules’ keep them safe when we let go of our scripts and experiment with new ways of thinking and doing.

The facilitator asks people to work in pairs. They should try to work with someone they are curious about.

Each person thinks about the character of racism in their own story. They will represent this form of racism as a character with body, movement and voice..

Flow is as follows:

Person A uses movement and sound to show their racism character to person B.

Person B mirrors the character back as accurately as they can.

Person A looks to see if it expresses what they want it to and offers an adjustment, or simply enlarges what is already there.

Person B mirrors this adjustment or enlargement.

Person A again adjusts and enlarges.

Person B again mirrors.

Note: Sometimes it is useful to allow participants to interrupt the mirroring for a short clarifying conversation, especially if B battles to express the essence of the racism character as A sees it. However, the showing and moving is always more important than the talking.

A and B swop roles working with person B’s racism character.

Facilitator asks participants what this is like for them and gets a few responses.

Note: Participants who do this for the first time may need to talk about its awkwardness, or how impactful/difficult/funny it is. Debriefing these feelings is important to help them engage with the next step which takes them deeper.

Facilitator now asks participants to show each other how they usually react to their racism character – or how they reacted that day when the story happened.

Person A: ‘When my racism character goes [show character as refined through previous round] then I go [show their own response through sound and movement].

A adjusts or enlarges only their own sound and movement, not racism character too.

B mirrors

This happens three times as before and then they swop. Again a short conversation in between may be useful, but keep it short.

Now each pair will work with one story at a time as follows: Person A play themselves while B play their racism character. The racism character begins with the sound and move assigned to him. Person A reacts as rehearsed but now they let the scene play out. The pig reacts again and Person A responds until it runs its course. Run the scene again but Person A chooses a different reaction – again the scene runs it’s course. Repeat three or four times until A is satisfied that the scene has been transformed.

Repeat with B’s story.

Note: The partner plays the character so that the person whose story it is can try out alternative ways they could behave.

R – Reflection

Have a conversation with each other about what this experience was like and what it means for you in relation to the intent you set for the session.

What gift did you receive from your partner in the interaction?

What shift can you see occurring in relation to your real life situation?

What else we got from this session

I – Integration

Talk about possible changes in attitude or action you can make as a result of the interaction between you and your racism character.

In our session, we used images to express 1. What this session gave us. And 2. What we want to say to others about racism, We also had three people join us at the end who witnessed the final conversation and also provided their embodied responses to what they heard.

Facilitation note: People can end up sharing very deeply with their partners and a round of appreciation is essential to allow people’s gratitude to be expressed. On another note: ot ALL the integration necessarily happens in the space of the workshop, or session. It is worthwhile drawing participants’ attention to this.

You are invited to catch flying pigs with us

In-person pig catching in Johannesburg

Topic: How do I stay connected to presence and people when I need to make decisions and take action from moment to moment?Date: Friday 31 MayTime: 7:30 am – 10:00 amPlace: Floor 21, University Corner, above Wits Art Museum, Corner of Jan Smuts and Jorissen, Braamfontein (parking can be booked 8 days in advance)Facilitators: Petro Janse van Vuuren,Dress: Comfortable clothes you can stretch and move inRSVP: by Wed 29 Mayto petro.jansevanvuuren@wits.ac.za (unless you want parking, then let me know as soon as possible- it needs to be booked the week before)

Topic: How do I stay connected to presence and people when I need to make decisions and take action from moment to moment?Date: Friday 31 MayTime: 2:30 pm – 4:00 pmPlace: In Zoom room with ID: 2828282259Facilitators: Petro Janse van VuurenDress: Comfortable clothes you can stretch and move inRSVP: by Wed 27 Feb to petro.jansevanvuuren@wits.ac.za

More about the topic

In spite of the growing popularity of mindfulness based programmes (MBP’s) in leadership and organisation development contexts, studies have highlighted various shortcomings. Many of these relate to the seeming incompatibility between the ethical and spiritual roots of Buddhist contemplative practise and the strategic aims of the organisation and existing culture where it is to be implemented. Most notable is the inability of contemporary mindfulness practise to account for the inherent strategic, action oriented or embodied, nature of leadership. In response, many MBP’s incorporate practices draw from other fields and sources, such as Applied Improvisation (AI), allowing programmes to address the particular needs and requirements of the organisational context. AI proves to be particularly suited to the leadership context leveraging its interpersonal dimension and action oriented nature. The study argues that this action orientation, or embodied nature, of applied improvisation is inherently mindful because of its immersion in presence awareness and openness drawing on the sense of resonance between participants for the interpersonal dimension.

Come feel what such resonance is like, how to achieve it and how to use it as springboard for strategic, mindful action.

How do I stay connected to presence and people when I need to make decisions and take action from moment to moment?

This week is the South African elections, I am getting ready to go to London for a week and we are in the third short work week because of holidays and work has stacked up. At the same time, I need to fill the emotional tanks of my nearest and dearest ahead of the trip.

How do I remain calm and connected when there is all this craziness going on?

I read: “At the very core of both the interactive quality of improvisational practise and the idea of mindful action is the ‘yes and principle’. This principle captures the essence of AI and of mindfulness++. The ‘yes’ refers to the complete acceptance of whatever is present in the moment and whatever another person might offer. It mirrors the detachment and non-judgement of mindfulness practise as well as the sense of compassion with self and others. The ‘yes is only possible when one has entered into a non-distracted space of stillness and intunement through the body and its senses as well as the other bodies and subjects in the room. “

I snigger, how can I find this ‘non-distracted moment’? From where I am now the journey to such a place seems a thousand miles long. Then I remember an exrcise I once did where the facilitator asked us to close our eyes and repeat the word ‘no’ three times, staying aware of our physical and feeling responses to the word. She then asks us to switch to the word ‘yes’ and again note our responses. I close my eyes and repeat the exercise and … there I am not distracted and aware of everything and everyone in my immediate presence. But the moment is tenuous and fleeting… if I blink or breathe I fear it might evaporate.

I read on “One can identify in this ‘yes’ state the altered state of consciousness that is characteristic of mindful leadership practice. In the ‘yes’ we have therefore encapsulated all the characteristics of contemporary mindfulness. It is then in the ‘and’ that the embodied action part characteristic of improvisational mindfulness practise is captured. The ‘and’ refers to the action one might take in response to what has been offered and what one has already ‘yessed’ to. These actions as a direct flow from, and in direct response to, the other actors (or colleagues, or loved ones etc) become mindful in its being invested by everything that is encapsulated in the ‘yes’.

With the ‘yes’ still permeating my consciousness, I surrender my fear of this week and get ready to act.

Craziness, here I come!

Below is my abstract for the presentation.

If you want to know more, join me for an improvisational mindfulness session live online or in the flesh in Johannesburg on 31 May. Click here for details.

The improvisational mindfulness session incorporates a methodology from the fields of applied drama and applied improvisation, strategic narrative embodiment (SNE). It demonstrates its value by focussing on two characteristics of leadership that cannot be addressed by conventional mindfulness practise alone: the inter-relational character of leadership and its inherent strategic, action oriented nature. The study highlights the necessity of a mindfulness practise that draws attention to these aspects of mindful leadership while retaining the value of traditional contemplative practise and presents applied improvisation, specifically in the form of the SNE model, as potential ally for addressing these needs.

Now available online and the first component is free!

Powered by Drama for Life, Wits University School of Arts.

Everything is changing so fast, but people struggle to adapt. This course will re-frame your reality and change how you help people shift. With models and tools from narrative strategy and applied improvisation, you can throw away old scripts and hone the skills that unlock your genius and the genius of your clients.

The steps are easy:

Try the free online modules first,

If it works for you, sign up for the live training sessions, online or in person.

The SNE course is a home grown, truly South African product – designed for our context Made with our people and for our future.
The course is accredited with the University of the Witwatersrand as a short course and you will receive your Wits certificate of competence

It has undergone a metamorphosis.

Instead of being a regular face to face course sign up for and pitch in person at some venue you spend hours looking for. This course is being turned into an online experience consisting of four components, the first of which is free of charge. Here are the components:

The free self paced component will go live in April and the fee baring line online components will happen in September and October. You will have a choice of Wednesdays 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm or the repeat on Saturdays 9:30 am to 11:00 am. a minimum of 6 people must sign up for any of these times for it to be a viable group.

The first 12 people to complete the self paced module will receive R 1 500 ($150) discount on the rest of the course = R 7 500 instead of the full R 9 000 PLUS an extra R 500 ($50) as a bonus.

Everyone wants to know what the global trends are for this thing or the next so that they can know if they measure up. Am I on par? As innovator in the space of leadership development, I am usually more interested in whether I am ahead or have an edge that makes me different from all the rest, but, I acknowledge the value of looking at the patterns evident in large scale social behaviour, if only to see what not to do. Was I pleasantly surprised! What the trends indicate we ought to do, is not what we see prominent leaders doing worldwide.

By following the trends, we may be doing something truly radical.

So, here you will find an analysis of six different sources dealing with the global trends in leadership development. I did this analysis to understand how a leadership coach and consultant should think about her own work in response to these trends. I also thought it would be valuable for organisations to see if their own leadership development strategies are on par with world trends and how they should judge the value of various leadership development options. In the top row I identify the source from which the information was drawn. They have been organised from the most predominant trend to the least prevalent trend. Once you have taken the time to go through the analysis, you may read my interpretation for implementation afterwards.

Applied performance is a cross disciplinary field that uses performance process and practice, be it acting, music, dance or other forms of art, backed up by socio-political theory to address social and political issues. The purpose is to make a change and bring about sustainable transformation.

At Playing Mantis we have developed applied performance processes specifically suited to organisational change and development. Its rootedness in the arts ensures a holistic learning process that is experiential and that can bring about systemic change.

Its use of narrative strategy and story telling also allows organisations to reframe their own narratives and reimagine their strategic objectives and ultimately their future. Applied performance is particularly valuable for culture change processes and is essential for organisations that are serious about transformation towards gender and racial equality.

Our applied performance model is called strategic narrative embodiment. The art forms that it most depends on is theatre, story-telling and improvisation sometimes inviting elements of visual art, dance and music. It functions on the levels of design and technique to help change makers create processes that really works. Read more.

SNE is inspired by the three elements of a story

Every story, fictional or real, consists of three elements:

Someone who wants something

Obstacles in their way

An attempt to get what they want in spite of the obstacles.

Everybody wants something. It is what motivates them. Tapping into this motivation is important for every coach-facilitator. It is the key to engaging people in the work of sustainable change that is for the better (change for good). Every time you, as a coach or facilitator, enter into a relationship with a client, you start by clarifying what the client wants: their strategic intent. This is often informed by existing documents like value statements or strategic objectives. Once your mandate is clear, and you begin to work with the designated group or individual, you once again have to create a picture of the intent with the people in the room – including you as enabler of that intent. It sets the context for the work. Of paramount importance here is that this intent must be owned and influenced, or made sense of, by all stakeholders not only by the paying client. Everyone needs to be invested in the process.

From this point on, you embark on a journey together, led by the narrative design. You are attempting to get what you want together. You are living through a story, artfully shaped, but not controlled by you, the coach-facilitator. Along the way you and the delegates are going to encounter obstacles. However, because you are using embodied participation as your mode of enquiry, you are allowing an interaction between the narrative design and the embodied participation that mirrors reality. As delegates overcome the obstacles, they are practising for the times they will overcome them when they are back in the real world after the process is over.

Because you are working with a narrative design through embodied participation, you are also inviting into the space the stories about all the other times delegates have tried and failed to get what they want. In this way they are able to identify and reflect upon dominant and habitual narratives that may no longer be useful or practical. These are things that people believe or do in relation to the strategic intent that are not producing desired results but that they continue doing out of habit or conviction. The process is non-threatening and playful and allows delegates to experiment with alternative possibilities and solutions.

The diagram above shows the relationship between the narrative design of the workshop (represented by the horizontal process line) and a participant’s interaction with it through embodiment techniques (the vertical process line). The entire dynamic is contained by the original strategic intent of the workshop (the circle in the diagram). The centrifugal arrows indicate the new possibilities that are released when the unofficial, dominant or habitual narratives are fractured by the interaction between narrative design and embodied participation. The dotted and curved arrow indicates an emergent new narrative that arises as the more effective one in closing the gap between what delegates want (strategic intent) and what they have (embodied reality).

The strategic intent of SNE

SNE is designed for Shift, yet it believes that Shift is only possible in a particular way and because of how people open up to new ideas. It is informed by a particular learning philosophy and a certain understanding of how the brain works. For now, let us explain it by distinguishing SNE from other kinds of theatre-based learning systems like industrial theatre and storytelling skills or presentation skills

Usually when people hear we use drama or theatre processes in organisations, they immediately assume we do industrial theatre. We emphatically do not. Industrial theatre is like presentation skills, voice training and storytelling skills. All of them help people improve top-down communication from management to teams. SNE is designed to have multilevel, multi-stakeholder conversations in complex systems where leaders feel the need to hear from and listen to team members, where teams need to work together across functions and need to break down silos, and where collaboration, innovation and new direction is sought.

SNE is good for strategic planning, relationship selling, customer service, vision and values alignment and leadership development. It is great for organisation development and innovation, team development and facilitator training, but only in forward-thinking organisations where employee engagement, collaboration and a flattening of hierarchy are important themes. SNE addresses systemic problems and works on the level of relationships. It can address embodied reality, behaviour and action and move beyond words, ideas and dreams.

SNE is designed to close the gap between what we want and what we have, what we say and what we do.

Aligning with associates and clients with a shared set of values.

How many times have you experienced a values clash with a client or a fellow consultant when using applied performance techniques?

What you find here is a set of 7 values that had been work shopped with applied drama and applied improvisation practitioners who do work in organizational settings. Three different groups came together at three different occasions (two of them happened at our last Flying Pig sessions). We used a combination of embodied images, role play, conversation and systemic mapping to interrogate the meaning of each of these values sharing scenarios and stories to help us find the appropriate nuances. You are most welcome to comment, question and contribute to the conversation.

Playing Mantis and Associates Ethical guidelines

It is important to us that our associates and clients understand and resonate with our ethical approach and values. These can be articulated as follows:

1. Deep collaboration: We craft our work in deep collaboration with all stakeholders involved. We do not use the powerful tools of story and embodiment to ‘download’ information top down to participants. Rather, we create work that introduces ideas and then facilitate conversations to allow audience members to interrogate and make sense of those ideas for themselves. It is important to us to value the input of all stakeholders equally.

2. Sustainability of human relationships: Sustainability to us means that no process can be a fly by night affair. It requires relationship building, negotiation and development over time. We are deeply interested in the sustainability of the organisations that we support, which includes all of the human aspects of the employees and the wider stakeholder community that will inform the organisational culture.

3. Intersectional symbiosis: We support and enable leadership styles that seek to negotiate solutions between the organisation and the community, between management levels, between departments, sections and divisions, between leaders and workers, between skilled and unskilled labour so that all impacted parties benefit. This means that all parties also have to be willing to adapt and rework solutions based on intersectional input.

4. Intrinsic value and contribution: We support the notion that every individual and every social grouping has value and can contribute positively to the workings of an organisation and its health. This means that every person working in an organisation, and also the community outside the organisation that supports the individuals, have value and can contribute something unique to the organisation that the leaders may not be aware of at the outset. We work to surface and incorporate these in all the work we do.

5. Systemic awareness: We support the notion that every issue must be considered in relation to larger systemic influences and conditions. These include social, environmental, political, historical, strategic, legal and technological factors that may or may not be visible and recognised by stakeholders at the outset. We work to surface and acknowledge the effects of these in all the work we do.

6. Rigorous self reflexivity: We hold ourselves and everyone we work with accountable to honour their responsibilities and agreements they make. We train and support everyone involved in our projects to be self reflexive and able to see and consider their own perspectives and positioning in relation to those of the other stakeholders so that prejudice, egoism, nepotism, domination and corruption are never an option.

7. Responsible sharing of intellectual contributions: We value our intellectual property and yours. It is our livelihood. At the same time we want you to be able to use what you receive through interaction with our work and integrate it into your own. We also want others to find their way to the materials and use it. We therefore ask you to reference our work wherever possible in written or oral format if you use it explicitly or if your own work was adapted from ours. In all these cases please reference us as follows:

– State the nature of our influence e.g. taken from / inspired by / adapted from

– State the author or entity e.g. Playing Mantis People development Consultants / Petro Janse van Vuuren